DOGWOOD, the name applied to shrubs and small trees of the genus Cornus, of the family Cornaceae, comprising some 6o species found chiefly in north temperate regions. They are mostly hardy shrubs usually with handsome foliage and attractive flowers and fruits. Several are widely cultivated as summer and autumn ornamentals and also for the winter effect of their brightly col oured branches. The common European dogwood, prick-wood, skewer-wood, cornel or dogberry (C. sanguinea) is a shrub reach ing a height of 8 ft. or 9 ft. frequent in hedges, thickets and plantations in Great Britain. Its branches are dark red; the leaves egg-shaped, pointed, about 2 in. long by II in. broad, and turning red in autumn; the flowers are dull white in terminal clusters. The berries are small, of a black-purple colour, bitter and one seeded, and contain a considerable percentage of oil. The white wood is very hard, and, like that of various other dogwoods, is used for making ladder-spokes, wheel-work, skewers, forks and other implements.
About 20 species are native to North America, mostly found east of the Rocky Mountains, only six occurring on the Pacific coast. Of these the most striking are the flowering dogwood (C. florida), of the eastern and southern United States, one of the most beautiful of American flowering trees, and its very simi lar counterpart, the western dogwood (C. Nuttallii), of the Pacific Coast. Both are usually small trees i o ft. to 15 ft. high, but occasionally 4o ft. or more, bearing in early spring a profusion of flower-heads each surrounded by four flowering bracts (involucre) 1 in. to 3 in. long, usually white but varying to rose-red, giving the head the appearance of a flower 2 in. to 5 in. across. The red flowered (involucred) forms of C. florida are extensively propa gated for ornament. Other well-known North American species are the red-osier dogwood or kinnikinnick (C. stolonifera), found across the continent; and the silky dogwood (C. Amomum), the panicled dogwood (C. racemosa), and the alternate-leaved or pa goda dogwood (C. alternifolia) natives of the eastern States and adjacent Canada. There are also two low almost herbaceous spe cies, the dwarf cornel or bunch-berry (C. canadensis), found from Newfoundland to Alaska south to Virginia and California, and the northern or Lapland cornel (C. suecica), native across Canada and northward to the Arctic zone and also in Scotland, northern Europe and Asia, both of which bear clustered brilliant red fruits, those of the latter are eaten by the Eskimos.
The widely planted Cornelian cherry (C. mas), a native of Europe and northern Asia, is a handsome shrub with glossy foli age, yellow flowers in clusters, and shining scarlet edible fruits, which are made into preserves. The Japanese Kousa (C. Kousa), native to eastern Asia, with creamy-white flowering bracts 3 in. across and fruits united in a globular head, is also grown as an ornamental shrub. The Jamaica dogwood, the root-bark of which is poisonous is Piscidia Erythrina, of the family Leguminosae.